1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to air conditioners, and more particularly, to a multi-type air conditioner which carries out cooling and heating at the same time, and a method for operating the same.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, the air conditioner is an appliance for cooling or heating a room space, such as a residential space, a restaurant, and an office. Recently, there have been ceaseless developments of multi-type air conditioner for more efficient cooling or heating of a room space partitioned into a plurality of rooms.
The multi-type air conditioner is provided with one outdoor unit and multiple indoor units each connected to the one outdoor unit and installed in each room. The multi-type air conditioner operative either cooling or heating mode for air conditioning a room.
However, of the plurality of rooms, even in a case when a certain room requires heating while other rooms require cooling, since the multi-type air conditioner is operating in a cooling mode or heating mode uniformly, the multi-type air conditioner has a limit in dealing with such a requirement.
For an example, there are rooms in a building of which temperature differs from other room depending on locations of the rooms or time in a day. That is, while rooms in a north side part of the building require heating, rooms in a south side part of the building require cooling, to which requirement the multi-type air conditioner fails to deal with. Moreover, in a case the building has a computer room, which requires cooling for coping with heat generation of the computer, not only in summer, but also in winder, the multi-type air conditioner fails to deal with such a requirement.
In order to solve such a problem, it is necessary to air condition the rooms simultaneously and individually during the multi-type air conditioner is in operation. That is, it is required that the indoor unit in a room which requires heating is operated in a heating mode, and, at the same time with this, the indoor unit in a room which requires cooling is operated in a cooling mode. Accordingly, development of a multi-type air conditioner of simultaneous cooling/heating type is required, which can carry out above function, and has an economic installation structure.